Movie notes: ‘Legion’ errs, critics say

Paul Bettany plays a pistol-packin’ angel in “Legion,” which opens today without being screened in advance for critics. We’re beginning to find out why.

The early results are trickling in for the new supernatural thriller “Legion,” and they aren’t any more encouraging than the numbers Martha Coakley saw in Massachusetts Tuesday night.

Since “Legion” wasn’t screened in advance, the first reviews from overnight screenings started showing up this morning. A whopping total of eight reviews have been recorded by the Tomatometer, only one of which was judged positive. All eight are from online critics, i.e., folks that aren’t household names. Since they tend to be more sympathetic to niche films that mainstream critics, that doesn’t bode well for “Legion’s” score of 13 climbing much higher.

Even the one review judged as positive (i.e., “Fresh”) is lukewarm at best. Writing for Mania.com, Ron Vaux gives “Legion” a B-minus, noting:

“What could this film have done with but a fraction of ‘Avatar’s’ money? ‘Legion’s’ biggest difficulty is trying to give us the apocalypse on the cheap, conjuring a huge canvas with little more than chicken wire and string.”

The other seven were not as complimentary, to put it mildly. A sampling:

 “It’s a labored, darkly photographed, cringingly acted hodgepodge of fanciful geek-bait genre ideas and hideous connect-the-dots scripting. Who knew the end of the world could be such a screaming bore?”  Brian Orndorf, Sci-Fi Movie Page